


The Taming of the  Shrew

by WinchesterNimrod



Series: AU Drabbles [7]
Category: Devilman (Anime & Manga), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Alternate Universe - Travel, Cannibalism, Dark Character, Demon Akira, M/M, Murder, Slow Burn-ish, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:50:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26580160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterNimrod/pseuds/WinchesterNimrod
Summary: Akira can't seem to do three very important things in this new world:1. Keep a job2. Be a good person3. Not fall for someone seeing as the last time he did he ended the worldoops
Relationships: Akira Fudo/Tensei Iida | Ingenium
Series: AU Drabbles [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1256339
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	The Taming of the  Shrew

**Author's Note:**

> New story. Don't slap me. I've already done that to myself way too much.
> 
> Takes place a couple of years prior to Canon. All Might is not wounded here.

For a small moment, Akira managed to convince himself he was a better person. Then the thirst sunk into his arm like a needle of heroin. Rush of its toxicity salivating his gums and burning his eyes a sharp red. The child he saved from collapse of a building above, arms scraped and snapped leg pouring out red juices, whimpered and shrivels beneath his braced arms. She couldn’t escape -neither could he.

Somewhere above, the flimsy structure of the building rumbled. Concrete, internal pipes and all that good stuff collapsed twice over as there were another bang.

Akira gritted his teeth, exposed inside of a human leg glittering like warm candy and looking far too enticing.

Muscles burned as he held on. Internal tissue tearing.  
  
_One bite…he’s so hungry…_

Akira bit the inside of his cheek and swallowed. Blood dribbling through pressed lips and falling onto that blue kindergarten uniform.

“Mister…” the kid whispered and Akira looked at her dusty face for the first time. She was crying. Wet tears and snot mixing into a tar consistency. He realised she was trying to smile. “You can do it.”

He laughed, “Don’t doubt it, kid,” and as though compelled to dispute him a metal pipe pierced through the cement wall he was holding and skewered him through like KFC.

.

Akira came to his senses with a sheet over him and agony in his chest. Fingers gingerly touched the healing wound and he gave the sheet a withering look. His stomach turned horribly in hunger. Beyond were sirens from all kinds of civil servant jurisdictions and sombre voices. He pulled the sheet back and rose quickly and irritably. This not being his first rodeo in getting mistaken for a dead body. Fun times.

He took a smooth glance around the street he had been walking down earlier this morning and found it upheaved into a tiny post-war zone. Arms crossed over his chest to hide the gaping hole in his shirt along with the bloodstain, Akira sauntered past the frenzied firemen, paramedics, police and survivors. Ignoring the smaller sheet he was placed beside.

.

Akira enjoyed the walk back to his modest little apartment as much as he enjoyed watching the stars burn.

“What happened?” His neighbour asked as he patted his pockets for his key - developing a slow inclination it must have fallen out during the mess earlier. With a sigh, he simply gripped the handle and forced it to open against its will with a metal scream. “Looks like a building collapsed on you.”

“Ha-ha,” Akira met Aizawa’s worn eyes with his own exhaustion. It was a wonder he was still standing. “I’m testing out halloween costumes.”

  
“Neat,” the guy said. “See you,” and he waved goodbye.

That’s what he liked about Aizawa, he let sleeping dogs lie. He also didn’t smell so nice. Closing the door Akira reminded himself to speak to the landlord later about enquiring after a new doorknob.

The inside of his apartment was droll in the way that it was so depressively lacking in decoration and mementos an interior decorator would weep.

Universe hopping wasn’t something he had exactly dotted on the calendar with a big magic marker circle tagged with a ‘Pretty Damn Devastating Event #2’ beneath 'Pretty Damn Devastating Event #1' on it, so screw him if he hadn’t packed beforehand.

Akira liked to think he arrived Terminator style. That of course would be wrong.

Luck swiftly missed him there and Akira not so much as ‘hopped’ - more like tripped into a wormhole on the way to Hell and summersaulted through it, into another seperate wormhole that just so happened to end above a dumpster. In an alleyway some hotheaded ‘Hero’ set on fire during a skirmish.

The apartment also had one room - apart from that cupboard named ‘bathroom’. Akira took a handful of steps inside, kicked off his shoes, and dropped onto his futon. Asleep instantaneously.

.

He woke up this time to an angry voicemail of his manager at the coffee shop screaming at him about skipping work.

“-RE FIRED!”

Akira snapped it shut and stared at the ceiling. Counting down from ten, then, with a mighty groan he flipped up to his feet and padded to the fridge. Inside was a compiled, cling wrapped selection of limbs. Ryo always liked cleanliness. He picked the hand he had taken from a teenager he had impatiently watched leap to their death last night on the outskirts of the city and tucked in. Spitting out a bit of gravel that had dug into the flesh when they braced for impact.

Shower, change of clothes and tying the overfilled garbage bin, he faced the world. Passing the landlord on his way out to discuss the…situation.

“Again?” The elderly lady gasped. Expression crinkling like tissue paper. “Good grief I should sue.”

He tried for a dismissive shrug.

“My my…” he continued to hear her grumble obscenities on the way to dump his trash into the communal bin. He paused for a moment in the alley outside the building. Reminiscing on almost getting burnt to death. Close call.

Such a shame that guy had to come running in.

There was a bus stop nearby and as per usual, a leftover newspaper sat on the complimentary seat. Some old man in the early hours of the morning, when it’s still dark outside habitually read in its entirety. He never got on a bus, he just appeared to sit there enjoying the solidarity. Akira got the honour to observe this peculiar behaviour for a week when he got his first job here.

He opened the paper to its job seeking page and began his hunt for an opening he could somehow manage. 

.

Succeeding a demonstration on his barista skills (observed from the distance ten minutes prior) coupled by his quiet, to the point personality - and his dashing good looks - Akira lands his job. Tomorrow afternoon at 12pm sharp, barista Akira Fudo will begin work at a book cafe in the centre of the city.

If he wasn’t still bitter about his favourite shirt being ruined and getting skewed like a fucking kebab, Akira might have smiled.

“We don’t get many villains around this area,” the manager. A kind looking middle-aged woman assured him as she gave a grand tour of the ‘know how’s’ in running the store. “Being located so close to the Iida Corporation puts them off.”

“Aah,” Akira politely said. Understanding none of that.

.

  
“You seem happy,” Aizawa said moments after having ran into each other at the convenience store a street down from their apartments. Both of them sat at the bench of the store. Slurping down instant ramen. Akira hoped to the High Heavens where Ryo sat laughing at him, Aizawa wouldn’t notice the chopped bits of human fingers he carried around with him mixed into the noodles.

“I got a job.”

Aizawa mulled this through the thundering pain at drinking boiling noodle broth. Amateur. “Thought you…” he snatched the water bottle Akira had on hand “already had one…fuck.”

“You ain’t wrong,” Akira agreed.

“Fired,” Aizawa deduced. Then proceeded to shake his head, half amused and half disturbed, “Again. Hell’s bells settle down already you’re giving me whiplash.”

Akira chuckled, “Ooooh, Aizawa~” he sung, kicking his feet up on the bench as he reclined with adept grace. “Makes you spit, doesn’t it?”

Aizawa simply rolled his eyes and continued his meal, this time at a more cautious pace. “I’m more curious about what you hope to achieve in that sad little world you call a life.”

  
“Boring,” Akira dismissed. “How’s supe work?”

“Boring,” Aizawa flung back cheekily. “UA wants me to come work for them.”

“So,” he swung on the back legs, “you gonna?”

“Hell no,” Aizawa deadpanned. Sinking his face into his scarf.

“Well, if they’ll feed you - “

“Ooooh yes,” Aizawa berated in monotone, “what a dealbreaker. My stomach.”

“Please, I’ll bet my dick on it they have good food,” Akira said pointedly with his chopsticks. Aizawa cringed at his lack of manners. “Better than this convenience store shit they sell.”

Unable to refute that, Aizawa ate irony.

  
“It’s because you act like a gangster all the time that you get fired so often.”

“Petty, Aizawa.”

.

The apartment Akira stayed at was not known for its warm tenants. Heaven knows why a Hero of Aizaawa’s calibre chose to rent such a downtrodden place. Maybe he was a masochist. Maybe he wasn’t paid well - either way you slice it, Akira made sure to do his illegal pinching when the guy wasn’t around.

On their way up the flight of stairs - despite the elevator running it was an untrustworthy piece of shit that looked like it hadn't been maintained since the 70s - they passed the communal notice board.

“Perv at it again,” Aizawa mumbled. Sipping a milk box. He was talking about the fresh notice pinned on to the board stating that another tenant’s boxer shorts had gone missing along with their groceries.

Akira made sure to shake his head and mutter a little curse.

Hey. Shopping was a pain.

.

There was a guy lurking outside Aizawa’s door when they made it to the top level. Akira sniffed the air and recognised the scent as that Hero who saved his ass from getting fried like Kentucky Chicken. Being his state at that unfortunate time a cooked mess, the guy wouldn’t notice him.

“Ho?” Aizawa ambled over to the dithering giant. The Hero couldn’t have dressed more appropriately for a guy of his profession.

White collar shirt butted to the tippy top. Knitted grey sweater vest most likely made by grandma herself - as she couldn’t let her little nephew catch a cold in sunny Japan - topped off with pants made for court hearings than recreational use. Were his boots polished or did they come that shiny?

Akira, who was often called a nerd before his growth spurt into a carnivorous demon, felt he could have never measured up to this clusterfuck of a neat pedestal.

“You planning on staying the night, then,” Aizawa noted the duffle bag hanging over the guys' buff shoulder. Tone used when laying a body to rest.

Akira watched the younger hero straighten with a nod.

“When I talked about leaving the proverbial nest I didn’t actually - “

“Uh,” the guy uttered. Staring at Akira as he shamelessly listened in. Not even bothering to look away.

“Akira,” Aizawa arched an eyebrow at him as he faced his lumbering glory.

“Aizawa,” he cheekily returned. Jutting his already arched neck to the Hero, “Who’s this nerd?”

“Me?”

“Oh boy,” Aizawa brooded.

  
“Yes, you,” Akira smirked at the reddening of the young hero’s cheeks and continued to prod, “I didn’t realise you had a _type_ , Aizawa.”

“Alright,” Aizawa tried to block the hero’s view of Akira with his body while unlocking his door. It does not do to underestimate Akira’s protruding height, or his inclination for mischief.

As such Akira popped his head around Aizawa’s shoulder and made kissy sounds at the now beet red hero.

For a guy looking to be in his early twenties, he sure seemed to be clutching his blankey. Aizawa all but threw the younger man inside his apartment. Meeting no resistance as he did - Akira swore he saw the guy leap inside with the agility of a gazelle fleeing from a lion on the planes of Africa.

“Sheltered, virgin and a nerd,” Akira ticked off on fingers. “Please, give me all the dirty details tomorrow.” Aizawa sent him a glare that made it not impossible to view him as a teacher.

“Be that as it may,” Aizawa said, tartly. “Keep the teasing to a minimum. Kid’s having a crisis.”

“What kind? Sexuality, family, place in the universe, yada yada yada - “

“Oh shut up.”

.


End file.
